Let's Talk

Posted on: Mar 20, 2025 at 1:58 PM

Patty, happy birthday. This year the class of 67 gets the spirit of 76. Hope it’s a good one for you

Posted on: Mar 06, 2025 at 11:03 AM

Happy Birthday

Posted on: Jan 01, 2025 at 1:49 PM

Rob, very best wishes for a great year in 2025.

Charles was a great friend. From 7th grade at Franklin to 12th grade at Washington we shared home room, he will be remembered.

Happy birthday to a great card-playing friend from the orchestra trips.

A super guy and I always enjoyed seeing him at our reunions. A true car guy and we would talk for hours on the subject.  My most vivid memory was attending Latin class with him in 9th grade at Franklin. Besides Ken Cook, Bob and I were the only studenst in the class who were not Honor Society members. However, we were too brash to be intimidated by the "high octane" IQs of the other class members. Don Miller was the class star. His intellect was amazing. The three of us simply muddled through.

A super guy and I always enjoyed seeing him at our reunions. A true car guy and we would talk for hours on the subject.  My most vivid memory was attending Latin class with him in 9th grade at Franklin. Besides Ken Cook, Bob and I were the only students in the class who were not Honor Society members. However, we were too brash to be intimidated by the "high-octane" IQs of the other class members. Don Miller was the class star. His intellect was amazing. The three of us simply muddled through.

Hope you are well you were always one of my favorite people. Thank you for all the kindness you shared. Have a wonderful birthday All month long!??

Bob was a wonderful, caring person and a great friend; this is very sad, he will be missed.

this is sad for me.

Bob and I were friends all through school years and especially college.

Loved him.  God rest your soul dear friend

Francie Dixon Martin

Say Russ you getting pretty old. Hope you continue to enjoy each Birthday. Eat Cakecake!!!

You seem to have disappeared. I worry about you. Let me know you are OK.

Posted on: Jun 05, 2024 at 8:39 PM

Al, have a great Birthday!
I'm in Texas now and Retired, enjoying spouse and 3 grandchildren! Have some cake and enjoy you celebration!

Happy Birthday Dar, I hope all is well with you and I also was saddened by the passing of Anne. May she rest in peace.

I am very sorry to hear of Ken's passing. We had communicated during COVID-19, but I had been unable to reach him after 2022. I know that he had experienced some medical issues post-Covid, and I wasn’t able to reach him over the past couple of years. 

I knew Ken through junior high baseball where the "Dream Team" was assembled in '63-'64 at Franklin. Besides Ken, the team consisted of Rick Eggleston, Bill Rogers, Steve Criger, Mark Fischer, and Jim Hamer, to name a few. 89 kids at Franklin tried out for 12 positions. The competition to become a starting player was brutal and Ken became our stellar second baseman. 

Ken had moved from Pittsburgh in the mid-50s. His father was a Distinguished Professor of Biology at Coe College. They had moved to CR after his father had completed his work with Jonas Salk on the rollout of the Polio vaccine. It is rare when one person or family can have such a monumental impact on the lives of others, but that certainly was the case with Dr. Cook. 

Ken and I attended First Lutheran Church on 10th St. S.E. We attended Catechism for two tortuous years with classes held on Wednesday night from 4:30-7:30. Looking back, it would have been easier to have spent time in a "Super Max" than listen to the monotonous and stale lectures by our Pastor, week after week. Fortunately for us, baseball was always on the horizon, in both thought and action, which kept the inordinate time spent in Catechism classes at a barely tolerable level.

As we transitioned to WHS in the fall of ’64, music became a major part of Ken’s life. He left baseball in our sophomore year because Bill Quimby, our coach, didn’t like the length of his hair. He went on to learn and play the guitar and performed for two groups in high school and college (The King Bees and Jerry and the Jesters).

Ken regularly attended our class reunions but having moved to AZ a few years ago, he didn’t return for the last three.

My condolences to his family. Ken was a great guy, and I am saddened by his death. We had so much fun together. My poignant memories of junior high are never complete without Ken.

I will always picture his seamless pivot from second on a double-play ball. He threw it chest high and never made me eat dirt. He was a consummate fielder and a hell of a friend.